Jeremiahchapter 44
30 verses · Jeremiah, written by Baruch · 7th to 6th century BC · The Prophets
This is what the LORD says: Behold, I will deliver Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hands of his enemies who seek his life, just as I delivered Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the enemy who was seeking his life.”
Introduction
Jeremiah, written by Baruch, The Prophets, Jeremiah Overview.
This is the last sermon Jeremiah preached that the book records, given in Egypt to Judeans who had settled across the land. His hearers were refugees who had rebuilt their lives around old household rites, and many of them believed those rites had kept them fed. The chapter is a public argument between a prophet and a congregation, and both sides give their reasons. Listen for the case the people make from their own experience, and for how the prophet answers it. The chapter ends by naming a test that events themselves will settle.
Context
- Who
- Whole families, the women named specifically, practising a household religion together
- What
- A sermon to the Judeans living in Egypt, their reply defending the worship of the queen of heaven, and the LORD's answer.
- Where
- Egypt, among the Jewish settlements at Migdol, Tahpanhes and Memphis in the north and in Pathros, the land of the upper Nile to the south.
- When
- Some time after the flight to Egypt in 586 BC and during the reign of Pharaoh Hophra, who lost his throne about 570 BC.
- Why
- To show that the people in Egypt repeated the sin that had ruined Jerusalem, and that their refusal would be judged by what happened.
Historical context
The chapter shows how widely Judeans had spread through Egypt: Migdol and Tahpanhes in the north-east, Memphis at the head of the delta, and the land of Pathros, meaning Upper Egypt far to the south. That is not one refugee camp; it is a diaspora. Documents from a Judean military colony at Elephantine, on the southern frontier, show such a community still there generations later, with its own temple and a religion that blended Israel's God with other names.
Show the rest of the historical context, 3 more paragraphs
The argument in this chapter is remarkable because the people answer back at length, and their reasoning is economic. When we burned incense to the queen of heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, they say, we had plenty of food, we were well off and saw no disaster; since we stopped, we have lacked everything and been consumed by sword and famine. They date their troubles from Josiah's reform.
The worship described is a family operation: children gather wood, fathers kindle the fire, women knead dough and make cakes bearing the goddess's image. The women add that their husbands knew and approved, a point that matters, because a married woman's vow could be confirmed or cancelled by her husband under the Law, and they are claiming the whole household is in it together.
The sign given to close the argument is the death of Pharaoh Hophra at the hands of his enemies. Egyptian records and the Greek historian Herodotus both report that Hophra was overthrown by Amasis and died around 570 BC.
Significance
First hearers were watching a community read its own history backwards. Prosperity under idolatry and disaster after reform is a real pattern if you start counting at the right year, and they had built a theology out of it.
Show the rest of the significance, 1 more paragraph
The reply is that God had in fact been watching those years, and that the incense they burned in the streets of Jerusalem was what he remembered about them. The chapter ends the story of the refugee community with almost no survivors, and with a small handful returning to Judah so someone would know whose word stood.
This chapter in Jewish lifeWhat this chapter is in Jewish life and reading.
What is done
The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this lane, printed no weekly portion and no Haftarah from this chapter, and no festival reading for the book. That table carries the Haftarah of each of the fifty-four weekly portions and the books read whole at the feasts, and it carries nothing for the special Sabbaths or the fast days. This card therefore names no public reading of the chapter and leaves that question to a source that holds those readings.
The corpus joins the chapter to the weeks of the Torah portions through the works arranged by portion. Under the thirtieth verse it carries Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vaera 8:1.
How it is read
Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. Every quotation of it is held to fifty words or fewer because the translation is modern, and his headwords, which carry the verse in that translation's wording, are never quoted.
Rashi reads the charge of the tenth verse as a matter of the heart: "Their hearts were not crushed because of their evil" (Rashi on Jeremiah 44:10:1). The fugitives who return in the fourteenth verse he names. "Jeremiah and Baruch returned from there", carried off when Nebuchadnezzar took Egypt in the twenty-seventh year of his reign, as Seder Olam teaches (Rashi on Jeremiah 44:14:1).
The women's words in the nineteenth verse about their husbands Rashi glosses as "Without their knowledge" (Rashi on Jeremiah 44:19:1). The last note is a point of grammar on the verb of the twenty-second verse (Rashi on Jeremiah 44:22:1).
The corpus carries twenty further notes on this chapter without an English text. Each is marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref, so each is cited here and none is quoted. The notes of Metzudat David are cited at Metzudat David on Jeremiah 44:1:1, 44:4:1, 44:6:1, 44:7:1, 44:8:1, 44:11:1, 44:12:1, 44:13:1, 44:15:1 and 44:20:1. The notes of Malbim are cited at Malbim on Jeremiah 44:2:1, 44:16:1 and 44:24:1. The notes of Radak are cited at Radak on Jeremiah 44:3:1, 44:9:1, 44:17:1, 44:18:1, 44:21:1, 44:23:1 and 44:25:1.
What the rabbis say
The corpus carries ten rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the seventeenth verse it holds Ein Yaakov, Shabbat 23:10 and Shabbat 152a:4. On the twenty-first verse it holds Jerusalem Talmud Rosh Hashanah 4:7:5. On the twenty-eighth verse it holds Bereshit Rabbah 84:14. On the thirtieth verse it holds Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 41:10:1, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Bereshit 41:10:1, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Vaera 8:1, Midrash Tanchuma, Vaera 9:5 and Otzar Midrashim, Baraita of Rabbi Pinchas Ben Yair 1:33. It holds Shemot Rabbah 8:2 there as well. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.
Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Jeremiah 44:10:1 to 44:22:1, The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg, reported CC-BY; Metzudat David, Metzudat David on Jeremiah 44:1:1, 44:4:1, 44:6:1, 44:7:1, 44:8:1, 44:11:1, 44:12:1, 44:13:1, 44:15:1 and 44:20:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Malbim, Malbim on Jeremiah 44:2:1, 44:16:1 and 44:24:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; Radak, Radak on Jeremiah 44:3:1, 44:9:1, 44:17:1, 44:18:1, 44:21:1, 44:23:1 and 44:25:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/jeremiah/44.json, the 10 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, printing no portion and no Haftarah for this chapter and no festival reading for this book.
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
Remember the Cities You Made Desolate
The word goes to the Jews in Egypt, from Migdol, Tahpanhes, and Memphis in the north to Pathros in the south. “You have seen all the disaster that I brought against Jerusalem.” The cause was incense burned to “other gods that neither they nor you nor your fathers ever knew.”
Jeremiah 44:1
“The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews - Dahler supposes this discourse to have been delivered in the seventeenth or eighteenth year after the taking of Jerusalem. Which dwell at Migdol - A city of Lower Egypt, not far from Pelusium. Tahpanhes - Daphne Pelusiaca, the place to which the emigrant Jews first went. Noph - מפס Maphes, Targum. Memphis. a celebrated city of Middle Egypt, and the capital of its district. The country of Pathros - A district of Upper Egypt, known by the name of the Thebais. See Bochart, Lib. Phaleg, lib. iv., c.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 44:2
“But God declares that his name shall no more be thus named by any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt; that is, there shall be no Jews remaining to use this dialect of their country, or, if there be, they shall have forgotten it and shall learn to swear, as the Egyptians do, by the life of Pharaoh, not of Jehovah.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 44:3
“In that they went to burn incense, and to serve - Or, by going to burn incense to serve thereby other gods.”
2 more voices on this verse
Jeremiah 44:3
“Because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger,.... The cause of this desolation was the wickedness they were guilty of; whereby they provoked the anger of God to bring this destruction on them.”
Jeremiah 44:3
“They forsook the God who was known among them, and whose name was great, for gods that they knew not, upstart deities, whose original was obscure and not worth taking notice of: " Neither they nor you, nor your fathers, could give any rational account why the God of Israel was exchanged for such impostors." They knew not that they were gods; nay, they could not but know that they were no gods.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 44:4
“O, do not this abominable thing - A strong specimen of affectionate entreaty. One of the finest figures of poetry, when judiciously managed, the anthropopathia, the ascribing human passions to God, is often used by this prophet: so God is said to grieve, to mourn, to have his bowels moved with compassion, to repent, to be angry, etc. Here he is represented as tenderly expostulating: O, do not; or, I entreat you, do not that abominable thing which I hate. 1. Do it not: your God commands. 2. O, do it not: your Father entreats.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
Jeremiah 44:4
“THIS verse portrays what a minister should be and the picture is a burden upon my heart and conscience, for it shows that the true preacher, or Prophet, or man of God, should be one whom God sends early to do His work. It is, as it were, as though his Master were up early in the morning, bidding him make haste to go to His service and not let the grass grow under his feet, for men are sinning—and to suffer them to continue in sin unrebuked, even for an hour, is truly dreadful.”
Charles Spurgeon · written before 1892 · The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Sermon No. 2684: “Two Arguments Against Sin” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition)Particular Baptist
Jeremiah 44:5
“Now this was intended for warning to you, who have not only heard the judgments of God's mouth, as they did, but have likewise seen the judgments of his hand, by which you should be startled and awakened, for they were inflicted in terrorem, that others might hear and fear and do no more as they did, lest they should fare as they fared." IV.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 more voice on this verse
Jeremiah 44:5
“But they hearkened not - 1. They disregarded the authority of their God. 2. They were not moved by the entreaties of their most affectionate Father. 3. In abominations they delighted. And, 4. They loved that which God hated; and, apparently, because he hated it.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 44:6
“Wherefore my fury and mine anger was poured forth, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are wasted and desolate, as at this day.”
John Calvin · Commentaries (1554)reformed
Why are you doing such great harm to yourselves: The LORD asks, “Why are you doing such great harm to yourselves,” cutting off “man and woman, child and infant” from Judah. Verse 10 says of them, “To this day they have not humbled themselves or shown reverence,” so the fall of Jerusalem had not turned them.
Jeremiah 44:7
“This great evil against your souls - Will not self-interest weigh with you? See what ruin your conduct has brought upon your country. Your fathers sinned as you are doing; and where are they now? Either destroyed, or in captivity. And you are now taking the same way to your own destruction.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Jeremiah 44:8
“Egypt--where they polluted themselves to ingratiate themselves with the Egyptians. ye be gone--not compelled by fear, but of your own accord, when I forbade you, and when it was free to you to stay in Judea. that ye might cut yourselves off--They, as it were, purposely courted their own ruin.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 44:9
“Have you forgotten how the wickednesses of your fathers were the source of the greatest calamities to you? their wives--The Jews' worldly queens were great promoters of idolatry (1Ki 11:1-8; 16:31). the land of Judah--They defiled the land which was holy unto God.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
2 more voices on this verse
Jeremiah 44:9
“In the original it is, And of his wives, which, Dr. Lightfoot thinks, tacitly reflects upon Solomon's wives, particularly his Egyptian wives, to whom the idolatry of the kings of Judah owed its original. "Have you forgotten this, and what came of it, that you dare venture upon the same wicked courses?" See Neh. xiii.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 44:9
“The wickedness of their wives - Many accept the reading of the Septuagint: the “wickedness of your princes.” “The kings, the princes, the people,” and finally “their wives,” is a summary enumeration of all classes, by whose united persistence in sin the ruin of their country had been consummated.”
Jeremiah 44:10
“They are not humbled even unto this day,.... Not contrite under a sense of their sins, nor truly penitent for them; not humbled before God nor man, so as to acknowledge them, mourn over them, and forsake them. The Targum is, "they cease not unto this day;'' that is, from committing the same things; which shows they had no true humiliation and contrition for them.”
I will set My face to bring disaster and to cut off all Judah: The sentence opens, “I will set My face to bring disaster and to cut off all Judah.” The remnant in Egypt will die by sword and famine. Verse 14 closes the way home, “for none will return except a few fugitives,” so the flight becomes the way it is lost.
Jeremiah 44:11
“Behold, I will set my face against you for evil--(See on Le 17:10). and to cut off all Judah--that is, all the idolaters; Jer 44:28 shows that some returned to Judea (compare Jer 42:17).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
1 more voice on this verse
Jeremiah 44:11
“All Judah - i. e., all Judah in Egypt, yet even there with exceptions (see Jer 44:14, Jer 44:28), while Judah in Babylon was entirely exempt from this denunciation.”
Jeremiah 44:12
“They shall not be wasted by natural deaths, as Israel in the wilderness, but by these sore judgments, which, by flying into Egypt, they thought to get out of the reach of.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 44:14
“When God inflicts the punishment, no one can save those in harm's way. Wherever they go, his wrath will follow.”
Cyril of Alexandria · written before 444 · Fragments on Jeremiah in Catenapatristic
We Will Surely Burn Incense to the Queen of Heavenvv. 15-19
Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods: The men and women answer together: “we will not listen to you!” They argue: while they burned incense “to the Queen of Heaven” they “had plenty of food.” The worship Jeremiah condemned in 7:18 is defended, and the women add their husbands knew of the “sacrificial cakes in her image.”
Jeremiah 44:15
“Had burned incence - Omit “had;” burned incense. This appeal of the prophet was made at a public festival held somewhere in Pathros, i. e., Upper Egypt: for the women are assembled in a great congregation (compare Jer 26:9), here formed for religious purposes. As they advance in regular procession to worship the moon-goddess, in accordance as it seems with a vow Jer 44:17, Jeremiah meets them, makes the procession halt upon its way, and pronounces in Yahweh’s name words of solemn warning.”
Jeremiah 44:16
“As for the word that thou has, spoken unto us in the name of the Lord,.... Which they did not believe that it came from the Lord, but was a device of the prophet's, and a lie, as in Jer 43:2; and if it did come from the Lord, their impudence was risen to such a pitch, that they were determined not to regard it: we will not hearken unto thee: to thy words; neither to thy exhortations, reproofs, or menaces, even though thou comest and speakest in the name of the Lord.”
Jeremiah 44:18
“The suppression of this popular idolatry had apparently been regarded with much ill-will in Josiah’s time, and many may even have ascribed to it his defeat at Megiddo. Probably Jehoiakim had again permitted it, but Zedekiah, during the miseries of his reign, had forbidden it, and the people ascribed the fall of Jerusalem to the neglect of their favorite goddess.”
2 more voices on this verse
Jeremiah 44:18
“Since we forsook our idolatries we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword, the true reason of which was because they still retained their idols in their heart and an affection to their old sins; but they would have it thought that it was because they had forsaken the acts of sin.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 44:18
“They impute their calamities to their service of God, but these are often marks of His favor, not of wrath, to do His people good at their latter end (De 8:16).”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Perform Your Vows Then: Pharaoh-hophra Given to His Enemies
Then Jeremiah said to all the people, both men and women: Jeremiah answers that the LORD remembered the incense they burned. “So the LORD could no longer endure the evil deeds and detestable acts you committed.” The ruin they blame is the result of their worship: “Because you burned incense and sinned against the LORD,” this disaster has befallen them.
Jeremiah 44:22
Therefore is your land a desolation - I grant that ye and your husbands have joined together in these abominations; and what is the consequence? “The Lord could no longer bear because of your evil doings; and therefore is your land a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without an inhabitant, this day.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
2 more voices on this verse
Jeremiah 44:22
“So that the Lord could no longer forbear,.... He did forbear a long time, and did not stir up all his wrath, but waited to see if these people would repent of their sins, and turn from them; during which time of his forbearance, things might be well with them, as they had said, and they enjoyed peace and plenty; but persisting in their sins, and growing worse and worse, he could bear with them no longer, but brought down his judgments upon them.”
Jeremiah 44:22
“Could no longer bear - The prophet corrects in these words the error of their argument in Jer 44:17. God is long-suffering, and therefore punishment follows slowly upon sin.”
Jeremiah 44:23
“Note, The right understanding of the cause of our troubles, one would think, should go far towards the cure of our sins. Whatever evil comes upon us, it is because we have sinned against the Lord, and should therefore stand in awe and sin not.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Then Jeremiah said to all the people, including all the women: Jeremiah addresses the women again and tells them, “Keep your vows!” The LORD swears “by My great name” that no one from Judah living in Egypt will again invoke His name. The remnant “will know whose word will stand, Mine or theirs,” the test of a prophet in Deuteronomy 18:22.
Jeremiah 44:24
“Earnest as was the preceding expostulation, Jeremiah sees that it has produced no effect. He therefore utters his last warning, and with this last resistance to the sins of a debased and godless people, his earthly ministry closed. Jer 44:25 And fulfilled with your hand - Your hands. Jeremiah pointed to their hands, in which they were carrying the crescent-shaped cakes which they had vowed to the goddess. Their idolatry therefore was an accomplished deed, as the symbols held in their hands testified. Ye will surely accomplish - Or, Accomplish then your vows.”
Jeremiah 44:25
"Well" (says God), " you will accomplish, you will perform, your wicked vows: now hear what is my vow, what I have sworn by my great name; " and, if the Lord hath sworn, he will not repent, since they have sworn and will not repent.
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Jeremiah 44:28
“They said that they should recover themselves when they returned to worship the queen of heaven; God said they should ruin themselves; and now the event will show which was in the right. The contest between God and sinners is whose word shall stand, whose will shall be done, and who shall get the better.”
Matthew Henry · Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
This will be a sign to you: “I will deliver Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hands of his enemies,” just as Zedekiah was delivered to Nebuchadnezzar. Hophra, called Apries by the Greek historians, was later overthrown by his general Amasis. The parallel tells the company that Egypt is no safer than Jerusalem.
Jeremiah 44:29
“The Jews being "punished in this place" will be a sign that their view is false, and God's threat true. He calls it "a sign unto you," because God's prediction is equivalent to the event, so that they may even now take it as a sign. When fulfilled it would cease to be a sign to them: for they would be dead.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown · Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Jeremiah 44:30
“Thus saith the Lord, behold, I will give Pharaohhophra king of Egypt,.... Pharaoh was a common name of the kings of Egypt, who usually had some surname, by which they were distinguished; and the surname of the then present king of Egypt was Hophra; whom the Septuagint and others call Vaphres; and, Herodotus (l) Apries.”
1 more voice on this verse
Jeremiah 44:30
“Behold I will give Pharaoh-hophra - That is, Pharaoh Apries. How this and the prophecies in the preceding chapter were fulfilled, we learn from ancient historians. The sum of such information is this: the subjects of Pharaoh Apries rebelling, he sent Amasis, one of his generals, to reduce them to their duty. But no sooner had Amasis begun to make his speech, than they fixed a helmet on his head, and proclaimed him king.”
Adam Clarke · Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Keep studying
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Carl Friedrich Keil, The Prophecies of Jeremiah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.